An armed shooter opened fire at a Washington, D.C., pizzeria in order to “self-investigate” a false conspiracy about the restaurant pushed by fake news websites and spread by fringe right-wing media outlets. Yet right-wing media figures have dismissed and downplayed the impact of fake news, calling it “satire and parody that liberals don't understand,” saying it is “in the eye of the beholder,” and claiming that concerns about fake news are “silly” and “nonsense.”

Broadcast and cable news personalities rushed to credit President-elect Donald Trump for closing a deal with the Indiana-based manufacturer Carrier that provides the for-profit company with millions of taxpayer dollars while allowing it to still outsource hundreds of jobs to Mexico. Journalists and reporters framed the agreement as a “symbolic coup” and “unadulterated win” for Trump’s incoming administration even as they acknowledged that supporting a relatively small number of jobs at taxpayer expense is an unsustainable manufacturing policy.

Fox host Brian Kilmeade praised waterboarding, claiming it “yield[ed] tremendous results,” during an error-filled interview with psychologist James Mitchell, the man who created the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” program. Mitchell and Kilmeade promoted numerous misleading arguments about the supposed effectiveness of torture as a form of interrogation while promoting Mitchell's upcoming memoir. Fox figures have previously spoken out in support of reinstating waterboarding as an interrogation technique, even though experts have condemned the practice, saying that it constitutes torture, is illegal under American and international law, and “yielded no intelligence.”

TheNew York Post published a front page report alleging that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “routinely asked her maid to print out sensitive government e-mails and documents -- including ones containing classified information,” but ignored the fact the emails in question were classified years after the fact. The report cited only two classified emails, both of which were retroactively classified at the lowest level of classification, a practice which is consistent with past State Department actions. Additionally, in both confidential emails Clinton did not request that her maid print the emails. The author of the report has a history of inaccurate reporting when it comes to Clinton’s emails.

Several Fox News hosts have recently been critical of early voting, a process that is especially important to voters of color who face systemic barriers to voting on Election Day. Fox hosts baselessly claimed that voters who already took advantage of early voting now want to change their votes and suggested voters “don’t know all of the information” prior to voting, which raises questions about “the wisdom of early voting.” Right-wing media figures’ contempt for early voting is not new.

Fox News is falsely claiming that a Justice Department official shared “inside information” with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to delegitimize the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server that found no grounds for prosecution. In fact, the information in question was publicly available.

Fox News chief national correspondent Ed Henry claimed that there is “a possible conflict of interest in the FBI probe” into Clinton’s server Assistant U.S. Attorney General Peter Kadzik emailed Clinton campaign manager John Podesta in May 2015 -- in a stolen email WikiLeaks recently released -- to share “inside information” that the head of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice would testify before a House Judiciary Committee meeting, potentially about Clinton’s emails. Henry claimed that Kadzik was “trying to hide” his “heads up” from “public record” by sending it from Kadzik’s private email address to Podesta’s private address. From the November 2 edition of Happening Now:

ED HENRY: You were just playing Donald Trump talking about Peter Kadzik. He's somebody who's the assistant attorney general -- big job at the Justice Department, overseeing congressional relations. He was part of informing Congress about the fact that this FBI probe was essentially back on, questions because of that dinner he had with John Podesta, the previous relationship representing him, and now WikiLeaks has a new email. This one as well from 2015, in which we see Kadzik giving what he called a “heads up” to John Podesta.

[...]

So, look, this was someone who had inside information about what was going on. He's giving the Clinton campaign a heads up about the State Department emails. And guess what? He did not send it on his Justice Department email. That would have been a public record. He sent it from his Gmail to John Podesta's Gmail; the only way we know is because of WikiLeaks. But they were trying to hide this, Heather.

But Henry’s suggestion of wrongdoing fails to note that information about the House hearing in question -- and all witnesses scheduled to testify, including the subject of Kadzik’s “heads up,” Benjamin Mizer of the Civil Division -- was publicly posted on House.gov, as the details about all public House hearings are. Bloomberg Politics’ Ben Brody noted that “Kadzik was alerting Podesta to public events” because “the Judiciary Committee held an open hearing that day, and a new filing in the court case” was made “a day earlier.”

This is not the first time that Fox News has sought to create a scandal based on communications from Kadzik; Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy pushed the false conservative claim that Kadzik was “overseeing” the FBI’s email review when in fact, his responsibility is communicating with Congress about the investigation when appropriate.

Right-wing media outlets are falsely claiming that a Justice Department official tied to John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, is “overseeing” the FBI’s review of emails that may be tied to the investigation into her use of a private server as secretary of state. Their claims are based solely on the fact that the official sent a letter to Congress about the review. In fact, the official in question leads the FBI’s Office of Legislative Affairs, and in that capacity he is responsible for communications with Congress, not active investigations.

The story appears to originate with Gateway Pundit author Jim Hoft, who is notoriously stupid but nonetheless provides a ready pipeline to other conservative outlets. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) poured cold water on the theory during an interview, pointing out that the official in question “is not a decision-maker, he is a messenger.”

FBI Director James Comey released a letter to congressional leaders on October 28 stating that the FBI had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the” probe into Clinton’s private server and was reviewing them to “assess their importance to our investigation.” On October 29, several Democratic senators sent a letter to Comey and to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking them to promptly provide “more detailed information.”

On October 31, Peter J. Kadzik, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, responded to those senators on Lynch’s behalf, writing that the Justice Department will “continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible.”

That evening, Hoft authored a post headlined, “IT’S RIGGED => Podesta DOJ Pal Peter Kadzik Is Heading Hillary Email Probe,” contrasting the October 31 letter with mentions of Kadzik in the emails hacked from Podesta, allegedly on behalf of the Russian government. He concluded, “We all know how this will end. Hillary will walk. It’s rigged.”

In fact, responding to congressional inquiries -- and not overseeing investigations -- is Kadzik’s job. He leads the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs, which “advises and assists Department leadership on a wide variety of congressional matters; advocates for the Department’s legislative priorities; and responds to congressional inquiries and oversight requests” and helps prepare department witnesses for congressional testimony.

Nonetheless, several other conservative outlets picked up the story, similarly claiming that Kadzik was “overseeing” the investigation and thus its results could not be trusted.

The story quickly spread to Fox News, where Gowdy, one of the leading congressional investigators of Clinton, shot it down. On Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy commented that he “was noticing on some of the blogs this morning” that Kadzik has ties to Podesta and asked Gowdy if he was concerned. Gowdy replied that he didn’t think it was relevant because “Peter Kadzik doesn’t make these decisions; they are made at the top of the DOJ.” He added, “Peter Kadzik is not a decision-maker, he is a messenger.”

Doocy has repeatedlyhighlighted fabricated stories based on Hoft’s “reporting.” Fox News has a documented pattern of offering news reports based on Internet rumors that turn out to be false. In January 2007, after Doocy retracted his falseassertion that then-Sen. Barack Obama "was educated in a madrassa," then-Fox News vice president for news John Moody, reportedly said in a memo to Fox News staff: "For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC. The urgent queue is our way of communicating information that is air-worthy. Please adhere to this."

Fox News has attempted to delegitimize Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls for months, claiming that the polls are skewed due to oversampling, that the size of rallies Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds is more indicative of his support than polls, and that there are “secret” Trump supporters who are too embarrassed to tell pollsters whom they support. However, other media outlets have explained that concerns about oversampling are “laughably incorrect,” and that claims that crowds are more accurate than polling are some of “the most idiotic claims out there.”

Fox & Friends hosts falsely speculated that billionaire and Democratic Party donor George Soros is manipulating voting machines that they claimed he owns in order to rig the 2016 elections and push his “agenda.” In fact, Soros does not have any ownership in the company he is alleged to control voting machines through, and the company’s voting machines are not even being used in the 2016 election.

On December 7, President-elect Donald Trump named Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as his pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Media should take note of Pruitt’s climate science denial, his deep ties to the energy industries he will be charged with regulating, and his long record of opposition to EPA efforts to reduce air and water pollution and combat climate change.

President-elect Donald Trump has picked -- or considered -- nearly a dozen people who have worked in right-wing media, including talk radio, right-wing news sites, Fox News, and conservative newspapers, to fill his administration. And Trump himself made weekly guest appearances on Fox for a number of years while his vice president used to host a conservative talk radio show.